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Message: <blockquote data-quote="barsoomcore" data-source="post: 587468" data-attributes="member: 812">Death may be a little extreme.I kinda have a group of these people. Not really, but there's definitely a couple like that. It can be huge pain for me as a DM to handle. I took a two-pronged approach.First off, I spoke to the person privately and explained that their behaviour was costing me a great deal of effort and time. I pointed out that it made it harder for me to maintain flow and suspense, and that them going off by themselves put me in the position of having to run essentially two campaigns simultaneously. Which I don't have time to do. I said that if they really felt their character would behave like this, maybe the best thing to do was to retire the character and come up with a more "party-friendly" type. What actually happened was that he and I sat down and spent a couple of afternoons working out some house rules and background material for his character. He's much happier now.Secondly, I spoke to the group. I asked them, in public and in front of the particular player, if they minded when sometimes PCs went off on their own and took up my attention. My concern was to find out to what degree it was bothering them, but of course one of my aims was to get the player in question listening and realising that their behaviour was affecting the other players -- without them getting accused and therefore becoming all defensive and angry. It also served as a lesson to all the players, helping to remind them that the game is best when everyone's having fun, not just them. Sometimes that's easy to forget.In general, I don't find punishment works very well. Not with my dog, not with my friends. It's a bad way to teach and/or train people. Positive reinforcement, an environment where everyone feels secure and plain old honesty work much better (and provide a more thorough solution) nine times out of ten.Except with mimes. Mimes, you gotta beat to death. I mean, seriously.</blockquote>

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